Thomas Tuchel made no secret of his frustration at Cole Palmer's repeated absences, sending a blunt message to his Chelsea star after the forward pulled out of the England camp once again.
Speaking in a fiery press conference before England's UEFA Nations League opener against Spain at Wembley tomorrow, Saturday, Tuchel said Palmer had missed another golden chance to prove himself.
The 24-year-old had forced his way back into Tuchel's plans after a stunning start to the season with Chelsea, scoring four goals and providing two assists in seven matches. That form earned him a call-up for the fixtures against Spain, the Czech Republic and Croatia, having been left out of the World Cup squad earlier this year when injuries dented his level.
A muscle injury forced the young forward to withdraw once more, and it sparked the German's anger.
"It is another missed opportunity," Tuchel told reporters in a sharp tone. "He misses a lot of opportunities, I do not blame him for that, it is just a fact. He is absent from a lot of camps because of injuries."
He added: "I only want to rely on what I see and watch myself within my team, and to achieve that the player has to be in the camp. If he is not in the camp, then there is a higher level in which the player must prove himself, a level that can only be achieved with me and my team on the pitch. It is a missed opportunity."
Fiery response to accusations of "managing his workload"
Suggestions that the national team's staff were easing Palmer's burden by letting him leave camp drew a firm rebuttal, especially as he had played the full 90 minutes for Chelsea against Brentford before linking up with England.
"He plays while suffering from discomfort and pain, and he cannot play at the highest level while suffering from that," he explained. "Chelsea informed us of that, and that is what I understood. We do not manage the players' workloads."
Tuchel pressed on: "This is not an international break, it is a competitive environment where the players love to train and be together. This is what we have created, and we will never give it up. We will never allow a feeling to creep in that the players do not want to attend. We focus on the players who strongly want to play for England."
His words come at the start of the first three-week international break under the amended FIFA calendar, which merged the September and October windows.
England open their Group A3 campaign against world champions Spain on Saturday at Wembley. They then travel to Prague to face the Czech Republic on 29 September, meet Croatia in Rijeka on 3 October, and host the Czech Republic again at Wembley three nights later.